Ryan Martin’s Indiana Ag Forecast for December 3, 2018

Cold air starts to blast back into the state today. After a very warm weekend where all precipitation came as rain (and more rain, and more rain!!), we will see today act as a transition back to cold weather. We may not make it all the way to below normal levels today, but the rest of the week will be normal to below normal, and we see a reinforcing shot of cold air for late week and the weekend that will take us well below normal.

Our precipitation outlook is fairly straightforward this morning and actually is significantly drier. That drier push comes because we are less concerned about a strong winter storm coming across the state to finish this week and weekend. In fact, that system looks to completely miss us, as such, the active pattern seems to fall apart going forward. After the rains we took this past weekend…that is good news, and no one should complain.

Today we still have some lingering moisture drifting over the state, as our strong lows associated with this weekend’s event continue to push off to the northeast. This backside moisture will come with winds swinging more to the north and northwest. Temperatures today will be pulling back from weekend levels but may not be cold enough yet to promote all snow…so we look for a mix of rain and sloppy wet snowflakes over about 40-50% of the state. Liquid equivalent totals will be under a tenth in most areas that see precipitation.

Tomorrow strong NW winds are in over the state, and that should allow clouds to break up in many areas. However, we do expect lake effect snows to develop in the typical areas in northern Indiana, as winds come right down the fetch of Lake Michigan. Look for lake snows in Porter, Laporte, western St. Joe, Starke, Pulaski and perhaps Marshall counties, but we do not expect major accumulations or problems. The rest of the state will turn out at least partly sunny, but colder. Lake snows are less of an issue on Wednesday, as winds decrease in intensity.

The rest of the week should be mostly dry, and the weekend as well. In fact, with the Friday-Saturday system basically gone (we may see some clouds in there, but nothing significant), we can be precipitation free from midweek this week through midweek next week. Temps stay below normal through next Tuesday. However, we still see signs of a significant warm up Wednesday through Friday of next week. Strong south winds drive that warm up, which could produce a similar ramp up to what we saw late last week ahead of the strong weekend event (namely fog and a very damp feel…not good drying).

In the extended period, we have a few widely scattered showers and a lot of fog for Thursday and Friday, but then moderate rains are back for Sunday the 16th. Half to 1.5” rain potential would come with that event…making it eerily similar to this past weekend. Temps fall off fast behind it.